How I saved the Life of A Little Bird Caught-To-Death Inside Human Luxuries
Birds. Those lovely creatures with colorful feathers. The ones that can
fly. We all love them, don’t we? May be we do. But sometimes our actions
don’t speak for our words. May be we love the pleasure they bring to
our hearts with their sounds and flights but we care very less for their
life. Let’s face it. Why am I suddenly speaking about them? Well,
something happened few days ago that involves a native Indian Bird,
Myna, few of us humans and those glass walls which have become symbols
of our metro culture.
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| In India, people believe spotting a lonely Myna amounts to bad luck but they’ve reasons to believe too.. Image:ceochick |
Of
late due to some work or other, I have not been visiting Central
Cafeteria building at my workplace which is a huge two-storied round
construction with minimum concrete and maximum glass walls. Probably the
lead architect thought it will invite in natural light reducing cost of
artificial lighting. Whatever his/her reasons, the birds are the new
casualty in that plan.
We
may laugh it out or just be too embarrassed to admit, but we have all
ran to crash on glass wall or door that we just didn’t see. At the most,
we get minor bruise or in most cases none at all. But for birds, this
act could be deadly. Some of us might have heard the thump when a sparrow crashes and falls down, and think it to be an isolated incident but it isn’t.
These collisions kill more birds than oil spills or pesticides do, says Daniel Klem Jr., an ornithologist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The spring and fall migration periods are particularly deadly, with large flocks of birds navigating cities and suburbs that are littered with windows — National Geographic.
It
isn’t just the skyscrapers that are the devil here but more and more
cases occur with normal stores and houses too. All this numbers add up.
Glasses that are ‘fancy’ and provide see-through viewing to humans
becomes deadly noose for this little creatures.
It’s a huge problem for birds. Up to a billion birds die in collisions with glass each year in the United States. Although most people have seen or heard a bird hit a window, they often believe it is an unusual event. Add up all those deaths and the number is staggering — American Bird Conservancy.
Coming
back to what happened that day — After finishing with an internal
assessment test which went unexceptionally well, all in good mood and
humming some happy song, I thought today I can spare myself for visiting
Central Cafeteria. Moreover I had insane time at my command. It was
only 12:30 in the noon. People usually start around 2PM for their lunch
and this place becomes like Sunday bazaar, with hell lot of noises, long
queues, and dubious scarcity of seats to sit. Anyways, I went straight
to 1st floor. There were around four-five people. The lunch was not yet
ready. The service guys were only preparing menu boards. Someone
suggested 2nd floor which I overheard and started climbing the stairs.
This is where it all began.
On
second floor, there were already few people sitting near the glass wall
facing a grand vista of huge trees full of lush green thanks to
bountiful monsoon. There was also a little bird out somewhere which I
didn’t notice at first. I was too taken aback by the scene before my
eyes. Took my phone out and clicked a shot; little did I know then that
the little birdie had made it into my click.
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| Look Closely at Right Corner of Glass ‘marvel’ and you’ll see the Myna I’m talking about… |
The guys had
stood up to leave. And the little birdie had just hopped some steps
closer to wherever it wished itself to. This time I noticed it but cared
less. It was Myna, a bird found almost everywhere in India. Yes, the
‘developed’ cities have destroyed their habitats but somehow few of them
have still survived. Most people also believe that seeing a single Myna
results in bad luck! I believe it not but whenever I spot a single
Myna, I look out for another. There’s reason why I do so. No, it has
nothing to do with the superstitious belief of bad luck! It has more to
do with gregarious characteristic of Mynas than any bad luck. Mynas
almost always are spotted in pairs. So if you see any single bird,
there’s always chance the other is somewhere nearby. I tried to spot the
other one. Ceiling, left-right, down, grills, windows, no sign of other
one. By now our birdie had made her way onto the bag of one of the
guys. By now we all started to take note of her (was it she or he??).
One hop down, one hop up. The bird was playing. Was it? It wanted to say
something? How would we know? The guy whose bag she was sitting got
worried by now — worried in case she shits on it!
“Is it still here? It’s fourth day. She has been trying to get out but failing miserably. It tried to run strong, hit the glass and fell down. Two days in continuum….”
Dressed
in all white, the service-boy gave us details of how the bird has been
stuck here since four days. This is when our curiosity chipped in. I
went near to observe. The bird was weak. Weak with both hunger and
constant jumps trying to escape this ‘maze’ of glass. Imagine if she
knew about glass like we do then perhaps she would have helped herself
in finding other pathways to outside and in all luck would be flying
freely outside now. But, she didn’t. She was trapped inside the fancies
of human mind.
Mynas
are identified by strong feet and, strong and direct flight. The boon
of ‘strong’ flight has become her bane now. The ‘stronger’ she flew, the
‘stronger’ she was hitting glass and more severely getting injured. She
was no more attempting those deadly flights the service boy spoke of.
My first thought was, may be she discovered the secret about this
see-through glass walls. But then I saw her pushing and tapping the
glass wall with her small beak. She has not given up. She did not
discover. She was still fighting for her survival. She was still hopeful
of passing through that glass. But how could she? They were strong.
Even we can’t break those glasses so easily.
The
bird took flight after some time when those guys approached her. I
thought they will catch her. But no. They weren’t. She was still able to
fly. And she did. Although very small in distance. She wanted to get
out but had no idea we want
ed her to help as well.
Now
there was very little that we could do. It had gone out of our reach. I
so wished that I had superpowers at that very moment. I would have flew
and saved her — in swish like they do on TV. But alas, god wasn’t kind
enough! By now another man from kitchen arrived and repeated the story
of what has been happening for four days. I was little annoyed and
agitated by now. Forget helping, none had cared to keep some water or
food to help the little birdie survive to fight her own battle, forget
helping her get out.
We were all spectators. Her struggle to get out, failures to do so were all part of our ‘show’. And we enjoyed it. For full four days.
I
tried to reason out with the man why they had not kept water or food,
he giggled and saw his way down. I asked the boy if they have net in
their kitchen to try catching the bird. No, he said. What now?
The
bird had moved few steps after our constant shooing. But still not at
our range. We all moved back. It went ahead and again came onto the
pathway where it was initially when we had spotted her. This was our
chance. I asked the guys present if they can catch her. None replied.
There were stares and whispers but no answer right away. There was no
time to argue or have a conversation now. The bags were still in place.
The bird moved closer to bags and I moved behind, a step at a time with
my hand in a position to grab her. Once when I came closer to her, I
tried to catch her but good god, it flew up before I could hold. Back
home, I had experience catching chickens in the evening and I thought
same tricks will help me here. But they weren’t. The bird was small in
size and hostile. Next, I stopped a while. Asked them to cover from
other side lest it fly again to those windows where we can’t reach and
we moved close. Slowly.
Aahhh!
In
the next moment, she was in my hands. But not very helping of my
gesture. She bit my finger but had not enough energy to make it count. I
was about to walk down and out to leave her but then the all
white-dressed service guy arrived. He asked me to wait so that he can
remove hairs from her one leg. I didn’t understood him at first but then
saw the legs of little bird in my hands. One leg was fine while the
other had its fingers entangled in human hair. It was scary scene, knots
which if got tight little more would pierce the skin and blood would
ooze out. He slowly pulled them one by one and freed the bird of its
agony. In those moments I wanted to tell someone to click a picture of
me with the little bird but somehow I couldn’t for the bird was
impatient and there was no time to indulge in my pleasures at her
expense. I walked down with few eyes staring at me. It was still busy
pecking my finger. Later I had to run a while to garden area and leave
her to freedom.
I was happy for being able to help. I don’t know if she was happy too. I
wished I had helped her by leaving near a water body but thanks for the
rainy season there was stagnant water here and there. Guess she would
have helped herself. I did saw her peck at ground, maybe she had found
her food, a worm after four days of captivity. Like I said before, I’m
never satisfied with one click and I did click another. Here it is.
That was one of the best day I had in long time. Some may think I helped her but I would rather think I helped
myself. I know how would I have felt had I not helped her find her
freedom. While going home I did had a feeling like the bird would in
some way fly on to my shoulder like they show in movies but to my bad
luck this one did not. Yet. I’m hopeful someday it will!
Good Bye little sweetheart. May you fly high and may never your freedom be at risk for the little fancies of human soul.
Talking of solutions to reduce glass collisions, we can start with glasses like Ornilux
which are designed by a German company. They are designed in such a way
that humans can see though the glass like we normally do thereby not
defeating the purpose of having glass walls. On the other hand, letting
birds see patterns which are created in UV range which they are capable
of observing while we are not. Win-Win for both. There are some issues
with Ornilux where few birds still find it not noticeable enough due to
different UV range. There are other solutions of leaving some spaces
between glasses and few others that stress on not having glass walls
near water bodies. Klem, a U.S. based researcher says,
“I think we have the knowledge to produce windows that will work, We just haven’t been able to commit to it.”
Thanks
for reading so far. Do Share if you liked what you just
read. It means a lot to me and helps other
people to discover it :)
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